U.S. Central Command is facing an incredibly complex challenge in the Middle East.
Consider this: The U.S. is navigating an awkward co-existence with Iranian-backed militias to fight the Islamic State in Iraq, while in Yemen, the U.S. is helping Saudi Arabia destroy a different Iranian-backed militia that has overthrown the Yemeni government.
“The central region is more volatile and chaotic than I have seen it at any other point,” U.S. Central Command commander Gen. Lloyd Austin said to the Senate Armed Services Committee this week.
The Pentagon’s airstrikes in Tikrit this week highlight the complexity facing the U.S. in the Middle East, according to experts who follow the region.
In Tikrit, the U.S. delivered airstrikes against the Islamic State only after weeks of being left out of the fight while Iranian-backed militias led Iraqi Security Forces there. After several days of stalled progress, the government of Iraq requested drones for surveillance assistance, and then airstrike support.
But the U.S. would agree to provide airstrike support only on the condition that the Iranian-allied militias leave.
After several conflicting reports that implied that all Shi’a militias had left Tikrit, and left the fighting to about 4,000 Iraqi Security Forces, the Pentagon clarified Friday that it allowed several thousand Shi’a militia who pledged allegiance to the Iraqi Ministry of Defense to stay and fight.
This dual alliance — to both Sunni and Shi’a factions — in the United States’ focus to destroy the Islamic State is not only making for odd bedfellows in Iraq, but also “is fundamentally at odds to the region’s approach to itself,” said Kenneth Pollack, an expert in Middle Eastern Affairs at the Brookings Institution. “The way the U.S. is behaving is inconsistent with what is going on in the region, and is nonsensical to folks in the region, based on their perspective.”
Pollack said that despite the Obama administration’s efforts to get a coalition of Middle Eastern governments to make their sectarian differences secondary to the unified goal of destroying the Islamic State, it’s naive to think it will work out that way.
“It’s just not how the region sees this. They see it as Sunni-Arab-Saudi against Shi’a-Persian-Iran.”
In Iraq, the U.S. may see nuance between Iraqi Shi’a militias that have no ties to Iran and feel comfortable enough to agree to airstrikes in Tikrit – which is what happened this week. But Pollack, who spent seven years as a CIA Middle East analyst, said it’s not the case between the factions there. “You can talk to them about an Iraqi Arab Shi’a, and they will refer to him as a Persian,” Pollack said.
Anthony Cordesman, a senior expert in Middle Eastern affairs who is a former national security assistant to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., disagreed that the administration’s strategic choices in Yemen and Iraq conflict with each other.
“One has to be careful assuming all Shi’ites are alike,” he said. “In some ways it is like watching a kaleidoscope. The alliances keep shifting, and many of the labels don’t take.”
Or, in plainer terms: “It’s a little like noting [during World War II] that on one hand we were backing Caucasians in England, while bombing Caucasians in Germany. The labels don’t always tell you very much about your target.”
Cordesman questioned how closely tied the Houthi-militias really were to Iran, but noted that the perception that the activity in Yemen is a power grab by Iran is possible. “In today’s Middle East, everyone is going to exploit every opportunity they can find.”
